Step 8
Co-Evaluate
Step 8: Upscaling and wrap-up
By the end of this step, you will have a pathway for scaling or transferring your solutions and learnings to other settings, sectors, or regions.
Step 8 explores how successful solutions and insights can be expanded, replicated, or transferred to new contexts. You identify what conditions are needed for broader adoption and partnership building, and consider how your knowledge and tools can be shared more widely. You will also reflect on your achievements and identify new opportunities. Finally, you will draw this turn of your living lab to a close. This step only comes into play once solutions have proven effective and the living lab process is functioning well.
U
Determine how your living lab can drive scalable transformation
The living lab can contribute to upscaling and transformation at a broader scale by ensuring that the insights, tools, and solutions it generates are accessible, adaptable, and impactful.
Evaluating this helps determine whether the living lab’s outputs are positioned to spread beyond the original context, increasing reach, accelerating learning, and enabling broader uptake.
Make sure you …
Make results available through open‑access platforms, toolkits, or guidelines so others can access and build on the knowledge produced. Consider organising capacity‑building workshops, training sessions, or webinars to support others in adopting and implementing the solutions.
Evaluating this shows whether the living lab has the relationships, evidence, and structures needed to promote real‑world adoption, ensuring solutions transition from local experimentation to broader implementation.
Consider whether you need to …
Engage or interact with policymakers, institutions, and practitioners to support integration of the solutions into policies, governance frameworks, or operational practices.
Provide evidence‑based recommendations and case studies to demonstrate the solutions’ effectiveness and scalability.
Collaborate with relevant organisations, networks, and actors to support adoption across different regions or sectors.
Build and leverage partnerships to increase reach, pool resources, and ensure the solutions are integrated into broader systems.
This helps ensure that scaling does not happen blindly. Monitoring uptake allows you to understand how solutions perform in new contexts, identify where adjustments are needed, and gather evidence about what enables or prevents successful adoption elsewhere.
Consider whether you need to …
Establish indicators to track performance, adoption, and the impact of scaled solutions. Clarify how you will collect insights about how solutions function in new contexts and incorporate this learning into future cycles.
V
Identify any new ideas and wrap-up
Your living lab is drawing to a close. The community were engaged, and have co-delivered change. There might be new things you or your community still want to address. This action identifies those ideas, preparing the ground for a new living lab journey.
It is important to take time and think about how you delivered your achievements and what you learned along the way. It has been a journey full of creativity, honesty, and ideas. Some of these may be excellent candidates for a renewed living lab.
Make sure you …
Review all your records and identify issues or needs expressed that were not priority at the time. Determine with your community whether they are still relevant and decide whether a new living lab is worth deploying.
You and your community have been on a journey. It is vital that you acknowledge your collective achievements, the challenges you have overcome and lessons learned. This is critical to maintain relationships for future endavours.
Make sure you …
Mark the occasion with an event or showcase that gives people a chance to reflect and share their experiences. Inform them clearly about what you collectively have achieved together. Thank them.